In one of our web application, we had a specific requirement wherein the client wanted the data from the app into a specific xls format. Thus we needed to export data from our app in this custom format and save the xls file on S3. Our app will then show a link to "Download" in ActiveAdmin UI clicking which it will start downloading this xls file from S3 on clients local PC. We have broken down the process into numerous steps, hope this will be helpful. The process goes as follows: The data from the app is exported

activeadmin-axlsx gem [activeadmin-axlsx][1] gem is very useful to download or export excel records from active admin. It provides "XLSX" links to download Active Admin resources. We can use this gem by include this line in gem file: gem 'activeadmin-axlsx' then run: bundle install Now all resources of active admin index page include a 'XLSX' link. There is some example to customize 'activeadmin-axlsx'. Remove unnecessary column: app/admin/orders.rb ActiveAdmin.register Order do config.xlsx_builder.delete_columns :created_at, :updated_at end Change the style of column header: app/admin/orders.rb ActiveAdmin.register Order do